I seem to remember the moral dilemma question about what to charge the man who only steals food for his children. All this woman did was lie about her drug history, which renders her morally equivalent to most politicians.

2. This is kind of true if you mean that anybody who writes for television or movies dares to believe something outside the realm of acceptable opinion on Fox News. Apparently, regardless of what any of us think is right or wrong, we should only write and produce art that conforms to one overriding goal: not offending people who capitalize on being offended.

Climate change is only controversial within the balloon of Fox and the right in America. Making a movie that touches upon our fears of the future is hardly controversial itself. Fear is one of the best topics for a film, even if it’s a fear that apes will rule the world while battling psychic mutants.

3. Can we just accept that politicians who have to run from the press should be chased faster? Mitt, you’re not going to be able to tap into the rightwing distrust of all non-rightwing media when you take on the rightwing media. Going apeshit on journalists trying to get close to Romney only exonerates the media for its supposed sins.

4. The Newt Comedy Tour primer. But what interested me was item #13, which shows Newt Gingrich repeatedly supporting the individual mandate as a conservative alternative to horrible things like Medicare for all. Every day it becomes clear that Republicans really have few core principles that they won’t betray the second Obama supports them. Obama started with compromises, Republicans started with, “Go back to Kenya with your anti-colonialist atheist Muslim communistic destruction of all that makes America dear, Barry Soetero!” The mandate always was a non-issue, the issue is hating Barack Obama, and Newt’s candidacy is rising because Republicans believe him when he vocalizes that hatred.

If Republicans want to run Newt, I say good for everybody. Because you couldn’t ask for a better representative for who the Republican Party really is and has been since Newt became Speaker in 1994. Strip away the folksy dunces like Dubya and you get the prep school dullards like Newt who turn their rejection into political resentment. They’re generally unlikable, and confuse arrogance for confidence. And they’re easy to deflate in online debate;) Newt’s biggest weakness on the way to the nomination is the fact that he’s also said enough to make any Republican hate him. But who could be the anti-Newt? Are they finally looking at Huntsman?

5. The more Republicans blather about Reagan (and unflattering themselves by comparison), they make us look back to the actual record of Reagan’s presidency, and it wasn’t good. Reagan’s single greatest accomplishment, it seems, was to make Republicans feel good about themselves. His attempts to play chess in the carnage of South America are so applauded that no manner of law-breaking displeased the forever loyal GOP base. The clear evidence that Reagan was increasingly a minor player in his own administration gave Republicans the model of the spokesman president who winks at America while the realpolitikers operate underground. This culminated in the disastrous two terms of George W. Bush. Reagan’s belief system broke in September 2008, and we’re just seeing the scattered pieces on television.

I’m a very rich person. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I’ve started or helped get off the ground dozens of companies in industries including manufacturing, retail, medical services, the Internet and software. I founded the Internet media company aQuantive Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft Corp. in 2007 for $6.4 billion. I was also the first non-family investor in Amazon.com Inc.

Even so, I’ve never been a “job creator.” I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate.

That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is the feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion a virtuous cycle that allows companies to survive and thrive and business owners to hire. An ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than I ever have been or ever will be.

This has become forgotten in the American collective, overwhelmed by Republicans chirping, “Job creators!” incessantly. Supply-side economics ends with low demand. People earning checks and spending their money on life’s basics with a few luxuries is the lifeblood of an economy. Giving money to billionaires competing for some damn list in a magazine for highest-stacked pile of cash isn’t quite as productive.

-hw

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2 Responses to “An expulsion of tabs, gas.”

To be a Republican & Christian, one must deny global warming, make the rich richer, the poor, poorer, the adulterers (Cain, Gingrich) the most respected. If we continue to get this stupid and regress, The Planet of the Apes will be more than a Hollywood movie.